Blog Post

The past. How do you really feel about it? Is it outdated, irrelevant, and useless? That’s what many people judge it to be; and they cannot wait to leave it far behind. Many of us look backwards with condescension, and even with a sneer. We believe that we are much more progressive than people were “back then,” and that we are moving ahead to bigger and better things! Maybe that’s true in some sense. Our knowledge continues to expand; and with that increased knowledge, we have the opportunity to make more informed, and therefore wiser, decisions in many areas of our lives. But should we forget about the past? Let’s think again about that.

On a recent vacation, my husband and I visited our daughter and her family who live several states away. On the night that we arrived, all of us gathered around the dining room table, held hands, and said table grace together: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let this food to us be blessed.” It struck me that our granddaughter was (at least) the fourth generation who had used that particular little prayer. My husband’s parents taught it to him; we taught it to our daughters; and now they are teaching it to their children. I felt a profound bond with those past family members, now gone home to glory, who not only used that prayer, but who had taught it to their children so that it could be passed on to future generations.

Has the church taught us things that we still find valuable today? Of course it has; and I doubt if anyone would question that. But all too often, we are ready to surge ahead into the future without stopping and thinking about our past. I believe with all my heart that “You don’t know who you are until you know where you come from.” That is as true of the church as it is of our individual lives. Without a familiarity with church history, how can we even begin to interpret mainline Christianity today? Heresies that first appeared in early Christianity, for example, have swapped their togas for business suits, and are alive and well. The experiences of the past can help us to combat them. Fractures that threaten to permanently divide parts of the Christian community are certainly nothing new. How were they handled (or mishandled) in the past? Maybe we should learn from Protestant history instead of simply wringing our hands and bemoaning the schisms that are so apparent in today’s American Christianity.

This applies to local congregations, too. Every community of faith has traditions in which they are steeped. Some have a heart for mission, some for hospitality, some for social justice. Where did that come from? Who helped to make it a part of the congregation? What actions have brought the church to where it is today? Like the table grace that my family cherishes, someone taught those traditions to their children, who taught them to their children, and on down the line. Do those traditions get warped? Sure. Do we sometimes get stuck in them (as in, “We’ve never done it that way before!”)? Yes, all too frequently. Do they sometimes need some gentle correction? Absolutely! But let’s not rush willy-nilly into the future and cut our ties to the past, because if we do that, we risk severing an artery that sustains us! Far from being a burden to be shrugged off, the past can be a gift to nourish us as we move into the future.

Boundary training will be offered for SONKA ministers at Harmony Creek Church, 5280 Bigger Rd, Kettering, Ohio, on Saturday, October 19th. You choose which of the two sessions to attend, each focusing on three case studies around boundary issues. The first session will be held from 9 a.m to Noon. The second will be from 1-4 p.m. To register for the MORNING session online, please click here. To register for the AFTERNOON sesssion online, click here. To see the flyer click here.